


Other Places

by vtn



Category: Late of the Pier, The Bears Are Coming (Music Video)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-03-06
Updated: 2009-03-06
Packaged: 2017-11-17 09:35:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/550155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vtn/pseuds/vtn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ames Leroux takes care of his little brother Nell.  Nell has odd friends.  Takes place in a universe based on LOTP's video for The Bears Are Coming.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Other Places

It isn't like it all started when we came to Nottingham. Strange things have always surrounded my family. My mother used to be called Mad Marie. She was the fortune teller in a traveling circus.

Maybe the fact that we grew up in the circus had something to do with it. From the very beginning it had been decided that I was going to become an acrobat, so I didn't exactly have a conventional childhood. As for my younger brother Nell, well from early on we could tell he wasn't all right, but not until Marie died (a bridge collapsed while one of the acrobats was driving her to the supermarket) did he really get weird. He would sit staring at the wall and spewing gibberish syllables, would crawl into my bed at night crying about how cartoon characters would come into his room and move his things around.

When I was 18 I landed a job with a prestigious circus in Nottingham. It was hard saying goodbye to the people who had always been my family, but Nell was 11 years old and he needed someone who could really provide for him. The new job would pay, I knew that much.

The problem, though, was the type of characters my brother seems to attract. A fresh-faced, red-haired boy who (according to Nell) talked to animals and slept in trees. A girl with a jaunty walk who woke at night and had eyes that always seemed to be changing colors. A lanky young man who tormented the others constantly with a toy wooden slingshot. It wasn't that they were bad kids; aside from the usual childish smoking of cigarettes until they hacked and coughed, their modes of play seemed to be relatively wholesome.

It was the places they took him.

I didn't believe any of it at first, of course. You never know what to believe with someone like Nell. Everything he said was one-third hallucination, one-third child's fantasy, and one-third bare truth. He talked to me about these playmates cutting holes in walls and striding right into different universes. Apparently Neil's friends were children of otherworldly privilege.

I think I must have started believing Nell when he got in trouble with Ross's mum that one day. The kids were disappointed that it was pouring rain outside, and after a full fifteen minutes of groveling Nell managed to convince me to let them all into our little flat. He was only twelve, then, and such a sweet kid that it was hard to resist.

"Everyone," he said, standing proudly in the doorway while five little faces looked up expectantly from the hall. "Welcome to my humble abode."

Andrew, the tall, skinny one, punched Samuel (the youngest, who seemed to have an ego the size of the Chrysler building) in the arm and repeated Nell's words, mocking his American accent.

"Be nice," warned Mica (the girl). "It's his house." Samuel, Andrew, Ross, and Sam nodded in agreement and paraded in, although I made sure little red-haired Ross wiped his bare, muddy feet on the carpet first.

Inside, the six friends quickly disappeared under a tunneling fort made of blankets. Samuel knocked it over and got into a messy scrabble with Sam on the floor. I made peanut-butter-and-jam sandwiches to try and solve the conflict, especially because Andrew had started to egg both of them on, shouting at Samuel to "go for the eyes" and at Sam "step on his fingers!"

They ate politely, except for Ross, who was looking at the jam jar with a frown.

"This's made from gelatin," he said, deep in concentration. "Mum says I'm not to have animal products." Well, no worries, I thought, and fixed him a PB-sans-J while Sam and Nell took care of his previous one.

Conflicts forgotten, the kids returned sticky-fingered to the game of fort-building (except Mica, who dozed off in a pile of cushions). When they had transformed the living room into something else entirely they moved on to kitchen "experiments" involving every chemical product they could find. Being as I was a carny and the kids of the kids of, etc, I had picked up some tricks and wowed them all with baking soda and vinegar. ("I knew that would happen," Samuel scoffed, but I could tell he was really rather impressed.)

While we cleaned up ("The final step of Isaac Newton's scientific method," I said with the easy authority that comes of being the only person in the room to have had proper schooling, "is cleaning up the lab area.") a bird lit on the windowsill and Ross cooed at it until it came close enough to eat breadcrumbs from his hand. The kids seemed unaffected but my jaw brushed the tops of my shoes as Ross began stroking the little sparrow's body.

"Pardon," Ross said. "Can I use your sink? He needs a bath, ain't had one in weeks."

"Isn't it raining out?" I said but I humored him because let me tell you, there is nothing like watching a bird voluntarily wash itself under your tap.

Nell grabbed Ross by the arm.

"Teach me," he said.

"Can't," Ross said with a shrug.

"Do it or I'll punch you," Nell countered.

"You won't do that! Ames is here." Ross tossed his copper hair. Nell leaned in close and whispered something in Ross's ear. Ross blanched.

"Nell!" I scolded my brother, but he waved me off. It's those moments when I know I'll always be just his brother. I'll never be Marie.

Now that the sun was coming out, most of the gang wanted to get out of the apartment. But Ross and Nell stayed while their friends made their way out.

The pair of them sat patiently on the floor with the little bird, Ross talking to it gently, Nell repeating after him. I tuned out after a while, focusing on straightening up the living room. And then I had to get ready for work.

Regardless of where little Ross lived, I didn't want him telling everyone I left Nell at home while I worked. Nell and the circus were mutually dangerous to one another. I made up some stupid reason why Ross had to go home, and he seemed happy enough to be released out into the wondrous dying day.

I dressed and left the flat. Nell waved goodbye and stayed behind with the bird.

\---

I imagine that people talked about what happened while I was powdering my hands with chalk behind the circus's red velvet curtain, bending to whisper rumors in one another's ears even as the lights went down. But when the curtain opens at the circus, the world outside becomes only as real as the fragments of a fading dream.

It was after dark when I got home. The streets were oddly empty, even for such a late hour. There was trash at my feet and remnants of what looked like it must have been a huge party or festival. Scraps of paper, ice cream cones, newsprint with grease spots.... It all only increased as I approached our block of flats, which seemed just surrounded by piles of trash. I was beginning to feel sick.

I made my way up to our floor, and to my surprise I encountered a middle-aged woman leaning against the wall to the side of our front door. She was knitting a scarf and wearing a huge raincoat. It had not been raining for hours, and the forecast called for clear skies the rest of the night.

"Ames Leroux?" she asked, brushing her long red hair aside to reveal bright green eyes. She was really beautiful, but there was something frightening about her face. Something wild.

"That's me," I said hesitantly.

"I am the Lord of Fauna," she said, "and you must let me into your flat."

I unlocked the door. She was the sort of woman you could not easily say no to. Detective stories always begin with "the dame was..." and they're talking about a woman like this one.

Now you might think that a reasonable person would suspect this woman of being simply insane. But you see, I know insanity. I see it in my brother's eyes when he's having an episode. This woman was completely lucid and as sane as can be.

She entered, and there was my brother. He was sitting on a couch babbling at the ceiling. The Lord of Fauna opened her raincoat, and out from it came hesitantly a little red-haired, red-faced boy. It was Nell's friend Ross.

"Boys," she said, and I knew she did not mean me. She removed her raincoat and stood there in a short green dress, red hair cascading down her back, and the look on her face was one of such great and terrible anger the likes of which I had never seen before and have never seen again.

"You must never do this again," she said. That was all. It was enough.

I decided that it would be rude not to serve our guest dinner. Again, you're probably thinking I'm being irrational, but if she had walked into your flat, you would have served her dinner too. We ate in complete silence, after which the Lord of Fauna grabbed Nell by the shirt collar and demanded he tell me what he had done.

"I told the birds," he said. "I told them to go to the stores, and, and stands and things," and his eyes were watering, "and have some food. They were hungry."

"And?" said the Lord of Fauna, eyes flashing.

"And it was wrong because stealing is wrong and birds should eat bird food, not people food, and, and," (sniffle), "because it's bad to mess with nature."

She let him go, and folded her arms.

"And Ross?"

"Mr. Leroux," said Ross, "I am sorry I used your flat to teach the arcane magicks. It was a bad idea and I promise I won't ever do it again."

"I'm sorry I threatened him and made him do it," said Nell.

The Lord of Fauna looked pleased. She took her raincoat and her son and left. It was raining.

\---

It rained for three days straight. By the time the rain was over, the streets were clean and it was as if nothing had ever happened. I didn't let Nell forget, though. I grounded him for two weeks, during which he was not allowed to see his little urchin friends. But things soon returned to normal, or as normal as they'll ever be.

And I will never forget that woman's eyes as she stood in my living room. If I ever consider not believing Nell has friends from _other places_ , that look is proof enough.


End file.
